CHAPTER SIX

The palace woke to whispers.

Not the usual court gossip—those were loud, hungry things, traded over breakfast venison and blood-wine. These were quieter. Slithering. The kind that lived in the walls and fed on doubt.

By midday, every servant knew: the new queen had been seen walking the corridors at dawn, barefoot and alone, trailing black rose petals that had not been there the night before. Some swore her shadow had lagged behind her, as though reluctant to follow. Others claimed to have heard two voices—identical, yet arguing—echoing from the disused chapel.

Elara heard the rumors and smiled into her morning tea.

Let them talk. Fear was a spice best added early.

She sat in the queen’s solar—a high tower room lined with cracked mirrors and overlooking the Lycan wilds. Sunlight struggled through stained glass depicting ancient massacres: wolves tearing vampires apart beneath eclipsed moons. Appropriate decor.

Seraphine sat opposite her, wrists still raw from silver but healing fast. Vampire resilience. Elara envied it sometimes.

They had not slept. After leaving the oubliette, they had come here under cover of predawn gloom. No one had seen them enter together. No one must.

A small table between them held a map of the palace, inked in blood on cured human skin—an heirloom from some long-dead Blackthorn king. Red X’s marked guard rotations. Blue circles marked weak points. A single black claw symbol sat over the royal bedchamber.

Seraphine traced it with one pale finger.

“You’re certain he sleeps deeply after the bonding?” she asked.

“Like the dead,” Elara replied. “The rite exhausts him. He’ll be vulnerable for hours.”

“And the mark?” Seraphine touched her own throat, mirroring the place where Cassius’s bite now glowed faintly on Elara’s borrowed skin. “It binds you to him. You’ll feel his pain. His death.”

Elara’s smile thinned. “Pain is an old friend. And death… well. We’ll share that too, if it comes to it.”

Seraphine studied her. “You hate him.”

“More than you can imagine.”

“But you let him touch you. You moaned his name like a prayer.”

Elara’s eyes went flat. “I let him believe what he needed to believe. Seduction is just another blade.”

Seraphine leaned back, folding her arms. “And me? Am I another blade?”

“You,” Elara said softly, “are the mirror. The reminder. The spare heart he’ll reach for when he realizes I’m not the woman he bargained for.”

Seraphine’s lips curved—bitter, amused. “So I’m bait.”

“You’re leverage. There’s a difference.”

They fell silent as a knock sounded. Three taps. Thorne again.

Elara rose, smoothed her gown—deep crimson today, the color of fresh arterial blood—and opened the door a crack.

The captain bowed. “Your Grace. His Majesty requests you join him for the hunt.”

“The hunt?”

“The border wolves have scented vampire scouts near the Ashen Ridge. The king rides at noon. He wishes his queen at his side.”

Elara glanced back at Seraphine, who had already melted into the shadows behind a tapestry. Good. She was learning.

“Tell him I’ll be there,” Elara said.

Thorne hesitated. “There is… another matter. A mirror in the west gallery bled this morning. The priests are unsettled.”

Elara let concern flicker across her face—perfectly practiced. “I’ll speak to the king about it. Thank you, Captain.”

She closed the door.

Seraphine emerged. “Bleeding mirrors. That’s new.”

“Not new,” Elara murmured. “Early. The prophecy is impatient.”

She moved to one of the cracked mirrors in the solar. Touched the glass. A single drop of blood welled from the surface and slid down like a tear.

“Every lie we tell cracks the veil a little wider,” she said. “When it shatters completely, the beast wakes. With or without a sacrifice.”

Seraphine joined her, staring at their doubled reflection. “Then we’d better make sure the sacrifice is him.”

The hunt gathered in the grand courtyard: fifty riders in black and silver, wolves the size of ponies snapping at their heels. Cassius sat astride a massive black destrier, armor gleaming, eyes alight with the thrill of impending violence.

When Elara appeared in riding leathers—tight, practical, scandalously masculine by court standards—the nobles murmured approval. She mounted a grey mare with vampire grace and took her place at his side.

Cassius leaned over, caught her chin. Kissed her hard in front of everyone.

“Stay close,” he said against her lips. “I want you painted in their blood by sundown.”

She laughed—low, throaty, the sound he loved—and they rode out.

The Ashen Ridge lay three hours north: a scar of blackened trees where a vampire incursion had been burned out centuries ago. The air still smelled of cinders and old death.

They found the scouts at dusk.

Five vampires—lean, fast, armed with silver-tipped arrows and desperation. They had been tracking a Lycan patrol. Now they were surrounded.

Cassius dismounted, shifted mid-stride into his war form: eight feet of muscle and fur and claw, eyes molten gold. The pack followed.

Elara remained on her horse, watching.

The fight was brief and brutal. Vampires were quick, but Lycans were stronger in numbers. Blood sprayed the dead leaves. Screams cut short.

When it was over, Cassius shifted back, naked and gore-streaked, laughing with exhilaration. He strode to Elara, pulled her down into his arms, kissed her again with the taste of enemy blood on his tongue.

“You didn’t join,” he said, not quite accusing.

“I was admiring my king,” she answered. “You fight like a god.”

His chest swelled. Pride. Lust. The bond thrummed.

They camped that night in the ruins of an old watchtower. Fires were lit. Meat roasted. Wine flowed.

Cassius pulled Elara into his lap by the largest blaze, heedless of watching eyes.

“You were made for this,” he murmured into her hair. “War. Blood. Me.”

She traced a claw gently down his chest, drawing thin lines of red. “And you were made to be worshipped.”

Later, when the camp slept and the fires burned low, Elara slipped away.

She found the vampire survivor chained to a tree at the edge of camp—young, barely a century, missing an arm. Guards had left him for morning interrogation.

He looked up as she approached, eyes wide with fear and recognition.

“Princess Seraphine?” he whispered in the old tongue.

She crouched. Pressed a finger to his lips.

“Not anymore,” she said in the same language. “But I have a message for your queen.”

She leaned close, whispered coordinates, dates, warnings. A plan half-formed but sharp enough to cut.

When she finished, she drew a small vial from her sleeve—nightshade and silver nitrate, distilled by her own hand in the solar that morning.

“Drink,” she said. “Quick death. Or slow, screaming, tomorrow when they start cutting.”

He drank without hesitation.

She kissed his forehead—absolution or mockery, she wasn’t sure—and left him to die quietly.

Back at the fire, Cassius stirred as she slid into his arms.

“Where did you go?” he mumbled, half-asleep.

“To piss,” she lied smoothly. “Your wolves scare away the wildlife.”

He chuckled, pulled her closer, and slept again.

She lay awake, staring at the stars through the ruined roof, counting heartbeats.

Twenty-eight nights left.

The next week passed in a haze of calculated intimacy and quiet sabotage.

Elara announced her first royal decree: amnesty for any vampire willing to swear fealty and provide information on border movements. Cassius approved—publicly. Privately, he raged at the softening of borders, but the bond made him pliant. He wanted her happy.

Seraphine remained hidden in the queen’s solar, fed on smuggled blood bags, studying palace maps and Lycan weak points. Twice, Elara brought her court dresses and jewelry—preparation for the day one of them would need to appear in public while the other struck from shadow.

Mirrors bled more often now. Servants found crimson handprints on glass that hadn’t been touched. Whispers grew into open fear.

On the twenty-fourth night, Cassius summoned Elara to the throne room at midnight.

He stood alone beneath the great moon window, shirt open, holding a silver chalice filled with dark liquid.

“Drink,” he said when she approached.

She took it. Sniffed. Wolfsbane and something sweeter—vampire blood.

“What is it?”

“A fertility rite,” he said. “Old magic. To ensure our child is strong enough.”

Her stomach turned.

The prophecy demanded a child—conceived under specific moons, born of true mate blood, strong enough to host the god-beast when the sacrifice was made.

In the original timeline, she—the decoy—had carried that child. Cassius had waited until she was heavy with it before killing her, claiming the beast needed both hearts: mother and unborn.

Now he wanted to speed things along.

She drank.

Fire raced through her veins. Heat pooled low in her belly. The bond roared.

Cassius took the cup, set it aside, lifted her onto the throne itself.

They coupled there, savage and desperate, beneath the indifferent moon. His claws scored her back. Her fangs—vampire fangs now—sank into his shoulder.

After, he held her like something precious.

“I dreamed of this,” he whispered. “You. Me. Our son. The beast awake and leashed to our will. An empire that spans both worlds.”

She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heart.

“And if the child is a daughter?” she asked softly.

He tensed.

“The prophecy says son.”

“Prophecies lie.”

He pulled back, searched her face. “You feel it already?”

She placed his hand on her flat stomach. Lied with her eyes wide open.

“A flutter. Too early, perhaps. But I know.”

Joy broke across his face—raw, unguarded. He kissed her belly, her breasts, her mouth.

“We’ll name him Valerian,” he said. “After my father.”

She smiled.

Inside, ice formed.

Because now the clock ticked louder.

Ten days later, the first assassination attempt came.

Not on Cassius—on Elara.

A crossbow bolt from the rafters during a banquet. It buried itself in the throne backrest exactly where her head had been a heartbeat earlier.

Cassius went berserk. Three nobles were dragged out and executed on suspicion alone. The palace locked down.

That night, in their bedchamber, he paced like a caged animal.

“Someone knows,” he snarled. “Someone suspects you’re not—”

He stopped.

“Not what?” she asked calmly, brushing her hair.

He shook his head. “Nothing. You’re safe. I’ll kill anyone who threatens you.”

She set the brush down, walked to him, took his hands.

“Perhaps it’s the vampires,” she said. “My mother’s house. They never approved the marriage.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think your own kin—”

“I think politics are poisonous.”

He pulled her close, buried his face in her neck. Inhaled.

“You smell different,” he murmured. “Sweeter. Like life growing.”

She closed her eyes.

The child lie was taking root.

Two nights later, Seraphine came to her in the dark.

“I’m ready,” she said.

They stood in the solar. Moonlight silvered the bleeding mirrors.

Elara handed her a gown identical to the one she wore. A dagger forged of star-iron—rare, deadly to both Lycan and vampire.

“Tomorrow,” Elara said. “During the blood moon feast. Cassius will be distracted by the ritual. You’ll take my place at his side. I’ll go to the beast’s chamber beneath the throne. Open the seals early.”

Seraphine’s fingers tightened on the dagger.

“And then?”

“Then we let the monster choose its own sacrifice.”

They embraced—two identical women, one soul fractured between them.

Seraphine whispered against her ear, “If you betray me—”

“I won’t,” Elara said. “We die together or not at all.”

But as Seraphine slipped away into the hidden passages, Elara touched her stomach—truly touched it this time.

There was no flutter. No life.

There never would be.

The lie was hers alone now.

And lies, like mirrors, eventually shattered.

In the deepest hour before dawn, Elara stood before the largest mirror in the solar.

She pressed her palm to the glass.

It bled.

And for the first time, something on the other side pressed back.